Ayatollah Khomeini composed 296 poems in different poetic forms. Of these, 149 are ghazals, or love lyrics. By composing ghazals and applying the form, themes and motifs of this well-known genre in his poems, Ayatollah Khomeini places himself in the millennium-old tradition of Persian literature. He is imitating great masters such as Hâfez, and elaborating on mystical themes used by poets such as Sanâʾi. Before starting an analysis of Ayatollah Khomeini's ghazals, I will give a brief history of the Persian ghazal, its usage, form and contents and of the contexts in which the ghazal has been used.

Structure of the Ghazal

Ghazals are poems of between five and fifteen couplets with a single rhyme. The same rhyme appears internally within the first couplet. The last couplet often contains the poet's pen-name, or, takhallos.1 A ghazal sometimes contains a radif, which means that each rhyme word is followed by a recurring personal suffix, word, or phrase.2 All metric forms can be used for the ghazal except for the metre that is used for the robâʿi form. Each line of the ghazal is formed from two half-lines or hemistiches (mesrâ`s) and constitutes an independent poetic ‘statement,’ with its own specific theme, which is often expressed in the first half-line and emphasised or exemplified in the second hemistich